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CORLEONE
A Tale of Sicily
BY F. MARION CRAWFORD
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1905
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT
1896
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
_First Edition (2 Vols. Globe 8vo) 1897_
_Second Edition (Crown 8vo) 1898_
_Reprinted 1902, 1905_
CHAPTER I
'If you never mean to marry, you might as well turn priest, too,' said
Ippolito Saracinesca to his elder brother, Orsino, with a laugh.
'Why?' asked Orsino, without a smile. 'It would be as sensible to say
that a man who had never seen some particular thing, about which he has
heard much, might as well put out his eyes.'
The young priest laughed again, took up the cigar he had laid upon the
edge of the piano, puffed at it till it burned freely, and then struck
two or three chords of a modulation. A sheet of ruled paper on which
several staves of music were roughly jotted down in pencil stood on the
rack of the instrument.
Orsino stretched out his long legs, leaned back in his low chair, and
stared at the old gilded rosettes in the square divisions of the carved
ceiling. He was a discontented man, and knew it, which made his
discontent a matter for self-reproach, especially as it was quite clear
to him that the cause of it lay in himself.
He had made two great mistakes at the beginning of life, when barely of
age, and though neither of them had ultimately produced any serious
material consequences, they had affected his naturally melancholic
temper and had brought out his inherited hardness of disposition. At the
time of the great building speculations in Rome, several years earlier,
he had foolishly involved himself with his father's old enemy, Ugo del
Ferice, and had found himself at last altogether in the latter's power,
though not in reality his debtor. At the same time, he had fallen very
much in love with a young widow, who, loving him very sincerely in her
turn, but believing, for many reasons, that if she married him she would
be doing him an irreparable injury, had sacrificed herself by marrying
Del Ferice instead, selling herself to the banker for Orsino's release,
without the latter's knowledge. When it was all over, Orsino had found
himself a disappointed man at an age when most young fellows are little
more than inexperienced boys, and the serious disposition which he
inherited from his mother made it impossible for him to throw off the
impression received, and claim the youth, so to speak, which was still
his.
Since that time, he had been attracted by women, but never charmed; and
those that attracted him were for the most part not marriageable, any
more than the few things which sometimes interested and amused him were
in any sense profitable. He spent a good deal of money in a careless
way, for his father was generous; but his rather bitter experience when
he had attempted to occupy himself with business had made him cool and
clear-headed, so that he never did anything at all ruinous. The hot
temper which he had inherited from his father and grandfather now
rarely, if ever, showed itself, and it seemed as though nothing could
break through the quiet indifference which had become a second outward
nature to him. He had travelled much, of late years, and when he made an
effort his conversation was not uninteresting, though the habit of
looking at both sides of every question made it cold and unenthusiastic.
Perhaps it was a hopeful sign that he generally had a definite opinion
as to which of two views he preferred, though he would not take any
trouble to convince others that he was right.
In his own family, he liked the company of Ippolito best. The latter was
about two years younger than he, and very different from him in almost
every way. Orsino was tall, strongly built, extremely dark; Ippolito was
of medium height, delicately made, and almost fair by comparison. Orsino
had lean brown hands, well knit at the base, and broad at the knuckles;
Ippolito's were slender and white, and rather nervous, with blue veins
at the joints, the tips of the fingers pointed, the thumb unusually
delicate and long, the nails naturally polished. The elder brother's
face, with its large and energetic lines, its gravely indifferent
expression and dusky olive hue, contrasted at every point with the
features of the young priest, soft in outline, modelled in wax rather
than chiselled in bronze, pale and a little transparent, instead of
swarthy,--feminine, perhaps, in the best sense of the word, as it can be
applied to a man. Ippolito had the clear, soft brown eyes which very
gifted people so often have, especially musicians and painters of more
talent than power. But about the fine, even, and rather pale lips there
was the unmistakable stamp of the ascetic temperament, together with an
equally sure indication of a witty humour which could be keen, but would
rather be gentle. Ippolito was said to resemble his mother's mother, and
was notably different in appearance and manner from the rest of the
numerous family to which he belonged.
He was a priest by vocation rather than by choice. Had he chosen
deliberately a profession congenial to his gifts, he would certainly
have devoted himself altogether to music, though he would probably never
have become famous as a composer; for he lacked the rough creative power
which hews out great conceptions, though he possessed in a high degree
the taste and skill which can lightly and lovingly and wisely impart
fine detail to the broad beauty of a well-planned whole. But by vocation
he was a priest, and the strength of the conviction of his conscience
left the gifts of his artistic intelligence no power to choose. He was a
churchman with all his soul, and a musician with all his heart.
Between the two brothers there was that sort of close friendship which
sometimes exists between persons who are too wholly different to
understand each other, but whose non-understanding is a constant
stimulant of interest on both sides. In the midst of the large and
peaceable patriarchal establishment in which they lived, and in which
each member made for himself or herself an existence which had in it a
certain subdued individuality, Orsino and Ippolito were particularly
associated, and the priest, when he was at home, was generally to be
found in his elder brother's sitting-room, and kept a good many of his
possessions there.
It was a big room, with an old carved and gilded ceiling, three tall
windows opening to the floor, two doors, a marble fireplace, a thick old
carpet, and a great deal of furniture of many old and new designs,
arranged with no regard to anything except usefulness, since Orsino was
not afflicted with artistic tastes, nor with any undue appreciation of
useless objects. Ippolito's short grand piano occupied a prominent
position near the middle window, and not far from it was Orsino's deep
chair, beside which stood a low table covered with books and reviews.
For, like most discontented and disappointed people who have no real
object in life, Orsino Saracinesca read a good deal, and hankered after
interest in fiction because he found none in reality. Ippolito, on the
contrary, read little, and thought much.
After Orsino had answered his remark about marriage, the priest busied
himself for some time with his music, while his brother stared at the
ceiling in silence, listening to the modulations and the fragments of
tentative melody and experimental harmony, without in the least
understanding what the younger man was trying to express. He was fond of
any musical sound, in an undefined way, as most Italians are, and he
knew by experience that if he let Ippolito alone something pleasant to
hear would before long be evolved. But Ippolito stopped suddenly and
turned half round on the piano stool, with a quick movement habitual to
him. He leaned forward towards Orsino, tapping the ends of his fingers
lightly against one another, as his wrists rested on his knees.
'It is absurd to suppose that in all Rome, or in all Europe, for that
matter, there is nobody whom you would be willing to marry.'
'Quite absurd, I suppose,' answered Orsino, not looking at his brother.
'Then you have not really looked about you for a wife. That is clear.'
'Perfectly clear. I do not argue the point. Why should I? There is
plenty of time, and besides, there is no reason in the world why I
should ever marry at all, any more than you. There are our two younger
brothers. Let them take wives and continue the name.'
'Most people think that marriage may be regarded as a means of
happiness,' observed Ippolito.
'Most people are imbeciles,' answered Orsino gloomily.
Ippolito laughed, watching his brother's face, but he said nothing in
reply.
'As a general rule,' Orsino continued presently, 'talking is a question
of height and not of intelligence. The shorter men and women are, the
more they talk; the taller they are, the more silent they are, in nine
cases out of ten. Of course there are exceptions, but you can generally
tell at a glance whether any particular person is a great talker. Brains
are certainly not measurable by inches. Therefore conversation has
nothing to do with brains. Therefore most people are fools.'
'Do you call that an argument?' asked the priest, still smiling.
'No. It is an observation.'
'And what do you deduce from it?'
'From it, and from a great many other things, I deduce and conclude that
what we call society is a degrading farce. It encourages talking, when
no one has anything to say. It encourages marriage, without love. It
sets up fashion against taste, taste against sense, and sense against
heart. It is a machinery for promoting emotion among the unfeeling. It
is a--'
Orsino stopped, hesitating.
'Is it anything else?' asked Ippolito mildly.
'It is a hell on earth.'
'That is exactly what most of the prophets and saints have said since
David,' remarked the priest, moving again in order to find his
half-smoked cigar, and then carefully relighting it. 'Since that is your
opinion, why not take orders? You might become a prophet or a saint, you
know. The first step towards sanctity is to despise the pomps and
vanities of this wicked world. You seem to have taken the first step at
a jump, with both feet. And it is the first step that costs the most,
they say. Courage! You may go far.'
'I am thinking of going further before long,' said Orsino gravely, as
though his brother had spoken in earnest. 'At all events, I mean to get
away from all this,' he added, as though correcting himself.
'Do you mean to travel again?' inquired Ippolito.
'I mean to find something to do. Provided it is respectable, I do not
care what it is. If I had talent, like you, I would be a musician, but I
would not be an amateur, or I would be an artist, or a literary man. But
I have no talent for anything except building tenement houses, and I
shall not try that again. I would even be an actor, if I had the gift.
Perhaps I should make a good farmer, but our father will not trust me
now, for he is afraid that I should make ruinous experiments if he gave
me the management of an estate. This is certainly not the time for
experiments. Half the people we know are ruined, and the country is
almost bankrupt. I do not wish to try experiments. I would work, and
they tell me to marry. You cannot understand. You are only an amateur
yourself, after all, Ippolito.'
'An amateur musician--yes.'
'No. You are an amateur priest. You support your sensitive soul on a
sort of religious ambrosia, with a good deal of musical nectar. Your
ideal is to be Cardinal-Protector of the Arts. You are clever and
astonishingly good by nature, and you deserve no credit for either. That
is probably why I like you. I hate people who deserve credit, because I
deserve none myself. But you do not take your clerical profession
seriously, and you are an amateur, a dilettante of the altar. If you do
not have distractions about the vestments you wear when you are saying
mass, it is because you have an intimate, unconscious artistic
conviction that they are beautiful and becoming to you. But if the choir
responded a flat "Amen" to your "per omnia sæcula sæculorum," it would
set your teeth on edge and upset your devout intention at the beginning
of the Preface. Do you think that a professional musician would be
disturbed in conducting a great orchestra by the fact that his coat
collar did not fit?'
Ippolito smiled good humouredly, but did not answer.
'Very well,' continued Orsino at once, 'you are only an amateur priest.
It does not matter, since you are happy. You get through life very well.
You do not even pretend that you do any real work. Your vocation, as
you call it, was a liking for the state of priesthood, not for the work
of a priest. Now I do not care about any state in particular, but I want
work of some sort, at any cost. I was never happy but once, during that
time when I worked with Contini and got into trouble. I preferred it to
this existence, even when we got into Del Ferice's clutches. Anything
rather than this.'
'I thought you had grown indifferent,' said Ippolito.
'Indifferent? Yes, I am indifferent--as a machine is indifferent when
the fire is out and there is no steam. But if the thing could think, it
would want work, as I do. It would not be satisfied to rust to pieces.
You ought to know a little theology. Are we put into the world with a
purpose, or not? Is there an intention in our existence, or is there
not? Am I to live through another forty or fifty years of total
inactivity because I happen to be born rich, and in a position--well, a
position which is really about as enviable as that of a fly in a pot of
honey? We are stuck in our traditions, just as the fly is in the
honey--'
'I like them,' said Ippolito quietly.
'I know you do. So does our father. They suit you both. Our father is
really a very intelligent man, but too much happiness and too much money
have paralysed him. His existence seems to have been a condition of
perpetual adoration of our mother.'
'He has made her happy. That is worth something.'
'She has made him happy. They have made each other happy. They have
devoured a lifetime of happiness together in secret, as though it were
their lawful prey. As they never wanted anything else, they never found
out that the honey of traditions is sticky, and that they could not move
if they would.'
'They are fond of us--'
'Of course. We have none of us done anything very bad. We are a part of
their happiness. We are also a part of their dulness; for they are dull,
and their happiness makes us dull too.'
'What an idea!'
'It is true. What have we accomplished, any of us four brothers? What
shall we ever accomplish? We are ornaments on the architecture of our
father's and mother's happiness. It is rather a negative mission in
life, you must admit. I am glad that they are happy, but I should like
to be something more than a gargoyle on their temple.'
'Then marry, and have a temple of your own!' laughed Ippolito. 'And
gargoyles of your own, too.'
'But I do not want that sort of happiness. Marriage is not a profession.
It is not a career.
'No. At least you might not turn a dilettante husband, as you say that I
am an amateur priest.' Ippolito laughed again.
Orsino laughed dryly, but did not answer, not being in a humour for
jesting. He leaned back in his chair again, and looked at the carved
ceiling and thought of what it meant, for it was one of those ceilings
which are only to be found in old Roman palaces, and belong intimately
to the existence which those old dwellings suggest. Orsino thought of
the grim dark walls outside, of the forbidding gateway, of the heavily
barred windows on the lower story, of the dark street at the back of the
palace, and the mediævalism of it all was as repugnant to him as the
atmosphere of a prison.
He had never understood his father nor his grandfather, who both seemed
born for such an existence, and who certainly thrived in it; for the old
Prince was over ninety years of age, and his son, Sant' Ilario, though
now between fifty and sixty, was to all intents and purposes still a
young man. Orsino was perhaps as strong as either of them. But he did
not believe that he could last as long. In the midst of an enforced
idleness he felt the movement of the age about him, and he said to
himself that he was in the race of which they were only spectators, and
that he was born in times when it was impossible to stand still. It is
true that, like many young men of to-day, he took movement for progress
and change for improvement, and he had no very profound understanding of
the condition of his own or of other countries. But the movement and the
change are facts from which no one can escape who has had a modern
education.
Giovanni Saracinesca, Orsino's father, known as Prince of Sant' Ilario,
since the old Prince Saracinesca was still living, had not had a modern
education, and his mother had died when he was a mere child. Brought up
by men, among men, he had reached manhood early, in close daily
association with his father and with a strong natural admiration for
him, though with an equally strong sense of personal independence.
Orsino's youth had been different. He was not an only son as Sant'
Ilario had been, but the eldest of four brothers, and he had been
brought up by his mother as well as by his father and grandfather. There
had been less room for his character to develop freely, since the great
old house had been gradually filled by a large family. At the same time
there had also been less room for old-fashioned prejudices and
traditions than formerly, and a good deal less respect for them, as
there had been, too, a much more lively consciousness of the outer
world's movements. The taking of Rome in 1870 was the death-blow of
mediævalism; and the passing away of King Victor Emmanuel and of Pope
Pius the Ninth was the end of Italian romanticism, if one may use the
expression to designate all that concatenation of big and little events
which make up the thrilling story of the struggle for Italian unity.
After the struggle for unity, began the struggle for life,--more
desperate, more dangerous, but immeasurably less romantic. There is all
the difference which lies between banking and fighting.
And Orsino was aware of qualities and feelings and opinions in his
father and mother which he did not possess, but which excited in him a
sort of envy of what he regarded as their simplicity. Each seemed to
have wanted but one thing in life since he could remember them, and that
was the other's love, in possessing which each was satisfied and happy.
Times might change as they would, popes might die, kings might be
crowned, parties might wrangle in political strife, and the whole
country might live through its perilous joys of sudden prosperity and
turn sour again in the ferment that follows failure,--it was all the
same to Giovanni and Corona. As Orsino had told his brother, they had
devoured a lifetime of happiness together in secret. He would have added
that they had left none for others, and in a sense it might have been
true. But he preferred not to say it, even to Ippolito; for it would
have sounded bitter, whereas Orsino believed himself to be only
indifferent.
Proud men and women hide their griefs and sufferings, when they have
any. But there are some who are so very proud that they will hide their
happiness also, as though it might lose some of its strength if anyone
else could see it, or as if it could be spoiled by the light like a
photograph not yet fixed. People sometimes call that instinct the
selfishness of love, but it is more like a sort of respect for love
itself which is certainly not vulgar, as all selfishness is.
It was not probable that either Giovanni or Corona should change in this
respect, nor, indeed, in any other, for they had never been changeable
or capricious people, and time had made solid their lives. To each other
they were as they had always been, but to others Giovanni was a man
advanced in middle life and the beautiful Corona Saracinesca was a rose
of yesterday.
She could never be anything but beautiful, even if she should live to
extreme old age; but those who had known her in her youth had begun to
shake their heads sadly, lamenting the glory departed, and seeing only
in recollection a vision of it, while they could not see the value of
what remained nor appreciate something which had come with years.
Strangers who came to Rome and saw the Princess of Sant' Ilario for the
first time, gazed in silent surprise at the woman who for nearly a
quarter of a century had been the most beautiful in Europe, and they
wondered whether, even now, anyone could be compared with her.
The degeneration of age had not taken hold upon her. The perfect
features were as calm and regular as fate, the dark skin had still its
clear, warm, olive tint, which very rarely changed at all perceptibly;
her splendid eyes were truthful and direct still, beneath the strong
black eyebrows. There were silver threads in the magnificent hair, but
they were like the lights on a raven's wing. She was straight and strong
and graceful still, she had been compared to velvet and steel--slighter
perhaps than in her full perfection, for she had in her some of that
good Saracen blood of the south, which seems to nourish only the
stronger and the finer tissues, consuming in time all that is useless;
wearing away the velvet, but leaving the steel intact almost to the very
last.
There could be but one such woman in one race, and it seemed in some way
natural that she should have been sisterless, and should have borne only
sons. But as though nature would not be altogether defeated and stayed
out of balance, the delicate feminine element had come to the surface in
one of the Saracinesca men. It was too fine to be womanish, too high to
be effeminate, as it showed itself in Ippolito, the priest-musician. But
it was unmistakably something which was neither in the old Prince, nor
in Giovanni, nor in any of the other three brothers, and it made between
him and his mother a bond especially their own, which the rest
acknowledged without understanding, and respected without feeling that
Ippolito was preferred before them. For it was not a preference, but a
stronger mutual attraction, in which there was no implied unfairness to
the rest.
It is one of the hardest things in the world to explain, and yet almost
everyone understands it, for it has nothing to do with language, and
everything to do with feeling. We human beings need language most to
explain what is most remote from our humanity, and those who talk the
most of feeling are often those that feel the least. For conveying a
direct impression, what is the sharpened conciseness of Euclid, or the
polished eloquence of Demosthenes, what is the sledgehammer word blow of
Æschylus, or the lightning thrust of Dante's two-edged tongue, compared
with a kiss, or a girl's blush, or the touch of a mother's hand--or the
silent certainty of two-fold thought in one, which needs neither blush,
nor touch, nor kiss to say that love is all, and all is love?
And that bond which is sometimes between mother and son is of this kind.
It is not strange, either, that the father who looks on should
misunderstand it, since it is the most especially human feeling which is
often the least comprehensible to those who do not feel it, for the very
reason that language cannot convey the impression of it to others.
Nothing is less ridiculous than love, except death. Yet a man in love is
very frequently ridiculous in the eyes of his friends and of the world,
the more so in proportion as he shows the more plainly what he feels.
Yet most of those who laugh at him have probably been in love
themselves. A cynic would say that the humour of it lies in the grim
certainty which others feel that it cannot last. Fear is terribly real
to him who feels it, but a man who is frightened without cause is always
laughable and generally contemptible. It is true that whereas we are all
human and feel humanly, humanity is very hard to understand--because
understanding is not feeling, any more than the knowledge of evil is
temptation, or than the knowledge of good is virtue. The best
description of a sunset cannot convey much to a man born blind, though
it may awaken longings in him, and sharpen the edge of his old suffering
upon the roughness of a new regret. And yet a description means very
much more to most people than an explanation.
Sant' Ilario had long ago accepted the fact that his wife was in some
mysterious way drawn to her second son, more than to the others. It
would be saying too much, perhaps, to assert that Corona was glad when
Ippolito took orders and the vow of celibacy. She was not an imaginative
woman, nor nervous, nor in any way not normal. Nor were the Saracinesca
by any means an excessively devout family, nor connected with the
history of the Church, as many Roman families are. On the contrary, they
had in former times generally opposed the popes when they had not been
strong enough to make one of their own, and the absence of any womanly
element in the great house, between the untimely death of the old
Prince's wife, and Giovanni Saracinesca's marriage with the Duchessa
d'Astrardente nearly thirty years later, had certainly not favoured a
tendency to devotional practices. When young Ippolito made up his mind
to be a priest, the aged head of the family growled out a few not very
edifying remarks in his long white beard. Even ten years earlier, he
might have gone into a rage about it, which might have endangered his
life, for he had a terrible temper; but he was near the end, now, and it
would have taken more than that to rouse him. As for Giovanni, he was
not especially pleased either, for he had never been fond of priests,
and he assuredly did not care to have any in the family. Yet, in spite
of this prejudice, there seemed to him to be a certain fitness in the
event, against which it would be useless to argue, and after a little
discussion with his wife, he accepted it as more or less inevitable.
But Corona was satisfied, if not glad, and what she felt was very like
gladness, for, without reasoning at all, she knew that she should be
jealous of any woman who came between her and Ippolito. She had never
been able to think of a possible wife for him--as she often thought of
wives for her other sons--without a sharp thrust of pain which could not
be anything but jealousy. It was not exactly like what she should have
felt, or fancied that she should have felt, if Giovanni had been
momentarily attracted by some other woman. But it was not at all like
anything else in the world.
She did not know how far Ippolito was aware of this, but she knew beyond
doubt that he was instinctively drawn to her, as she was to him. She had
that intuitive certainty, which women know so well, that in a moment of
danger he would think first of her, precisely as her husband would. Such
instincts are, perhaps, but shadowy inklings of the gray primeval past,
when women and children knew to whom they must look for protection
against man and beast; but they are known to us all in connection with
those we love best, though they may never cross our thoughts when we are
alone.
There was between her and Ippolito a sort of constant mutual echoing of
thought and feeling; that sort of sympathy which, between people of
sensitive and unhealthy organisation, leads to those things, not easily
explained, to which the name of telepathy has lately been attached as a
tentative definition. But these two were not unhealthy, nor morbidly
sensitive, nor otherwise different from normal human beings. Corona had
never been ill in her life, and if Ippolito had been thought delicate in
his boyhood, it was by contrast with the rest of a family remarkable for
most uncommon health and strength.
All this has seemed necessary in order to explain the events which at
this time took place in the Saracinesca household. Nothing unusual had
occurred in the family for many years, excepting Orsino's rather foolish
and most unlucky attempt to occupy himself in business at the time of
the great building speculation, and his first love affair, to which
reference was made in the beginning of this somewhat explanatory
chapter.